***** “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” [ Donald John Trump:
“Dismal marks, only two months in”; George Will; Washington Post Weekly; 3/23/25 ]
Note: this post presents excerpts from “The monetization of the presidency, with little protest”; Peter Baker; New York Times; 6/1/25 – read the entire article !!!!!]
1] “The Trumps are hardly the first presidential family to profit from their time in power, but their patriarch has done more to monetize the presidency than anyone who has ever occupied the White House. The scale and the scope of the presidential mercantilism has been breathtaking.”
2] “The Trump family and its business partners have collected $320 million in fees from a new cryptocurrency, brokered overseas real estate deals worth billions of dollars and is opening an exclusive club in Washington called the Executive Branch charging $500,000 apiece to join, all in the past few months alone.”
***** “…former first term Cabinet and staff members – Tillerson called Trump “a moron;” James Mattis said Trump was “more dangerous than anyone could ever imagine;” John Kelly said Trump was “the most flawed person I have ever met;” John Bolton said Trump was ‘a laughing fool.” [Ashley Parker, Michael Scherer: “Donald Trump Is Enjoying This”; The Atlantic; June, 2025]
3]. “Just last month, Qatar handed over a luxury jet meant for Trump’s use not just in his official capacity but also for his presidential library after he leaves office. Experts have valued the plane..at $200 million – more than all of the foreign gifts bestowed on all previous American presidents combined.”
4]. “..Trump hosted an exclusive dinner at his Virginia club for 220 investors in the $TRUMP cryptocurrency that he started days before taking office.. Access was openly sold based on how much money they chipped in – not to a campaign account but to a business that benefits Trump personally.”
***** “Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.”
[ George Bernard Shaw ]
5]. “.. a mark of how much Trump has transformed Washington since his return to power is the normalization of moneymaking schemes that once would have generated endless political blowback, televised hearings, official investigations and damage control. The dearth of outrage in the Trump era…exemplifies how far the president has moved the lines of accepted behavior in Washington.”
6]. “Trump, the first convicted felon elected president, has erased ethical boundaries and dismantled the instruments of accountability that constrained his predecessors. There will be no official investigations because Trump has made sure of it. He has fired government inspectors general and ethics watchdogs, installed partisan loyalists to run the Justice Department, FBI and regulatory agencies and dominated a Republican-controlled Congress unwilling to hold hearings.
***** “When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There – a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator – so decrees.” [ Jessica Mitford ]
7] “When Trump provokes a major news story every day or even every hour – more tariffs on allies, more retribution against enemies, more defiance of court orders – rarely does a single action stay in the headlines long enough to shape the national conversation.”
8] “The American public has had to inure itself to the corruption of Donald Trump and his presidency because the president and his Republican Party have given the American public no choice in the matter,” said J. Michael Luttig, a conservative former appeals court judger who has become a critic of Trump.” [NOTE: – †his challenge to YOU – WHY has this distinguished CONSERVATIVE former judge become a Trump critic?????????? Investigate this man to find out the background of him; then figure out WHY Judge Luttig has become a Trump critic.]
***** “The wicked walk about freely when the vilest men are exalted.” [ Psalm 12:8 ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, XXXXI – Russian Similarities
***** “Power must never be trusted without a check.” [ John Adams, Founding Father, Second President ]
“Six Russian Terms For What’s Happening In America” [ Maria Kuzetsova, Dan Storyev; New York Times; 6/15/25}:
1] “We both grew up in Russia in the early 2000s and lived through the country’s gradual slide into authoritarianism under President Vladimir Putin…In recent months we have been noticing something worrying: The same markers of authoritarianism we know from our youth have been appearing in America.”
2] “Our American friends often struggle to describe what exactly is happening…in part, they simply don’t have the language for it. We do. Over decades of facing dictators, Russians have developed a rich vocabulary to make sense of authoritarian reality – a weave of neologisms, coded jokes, doublespeak and Aesopian language.”
3]. “Words like “oligarchy” and “gulag” have been pressed into use as people try to make sense of President Trump’s administration…We decided to write a phrase book..to help Americans name their new reality. Because when we can describe what is happening, it becomes a bit easier to fight it.”
4] “Mnogohodovochka” is an ironic Russian term that translates literally as “multiple steps” and usually means “master plan.” The term emerged online to mock the Kremlin’s need to explain Mr. Putin’s actions, even when they made no sense. State media presents everything he does as part of a brilliant long-term plan that will – one day – bring great benefit to ordinary citizens.” [note” observe Republican verbal gymnastics defending Trump!!!!!]
5] “One of Mr. Putin’s plans has actually been successful: the building of a “power vertical.” or. “vertikal vlasti” in Russian. It essentially means a hypercentralized, strictly hierarchical system of governance.”………..
“Remind you of anything?…this approach aligns all too well with the so-called unitary executive theory, long pushed by American conservatives. According to it, the president has the sole authority over the executive branch, which supersedes the rest. Mr. Trump has already put the principle to strenuous use, flooding the country with executive orders and defying the courts.”
“When you see your government hiring people based exclusively on loyalty, threatening political opponents, making nonpartisan agencies politically dependent and even effectively disobeying the Supreme Court, know: This is what a power vertical looks like.”
***** “The most odious of all oppressions are those which mask as justice.” { Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson }
6] “Who helps the leader establish his power vertical? Roughly translated as “men of power,” ‘siloviki”. is a political caste authorized to use violence against citizens.”
“Siloviki” is perhaps the most borrowed word in Russian studies – probably because it explains so much about Mr. Putin’s Russia. Its members are the police, the border control, the army, the security services, the spies.” ……..
“When we watched the videos of the arrests of Mahmoud Khalil or Rumeysa Ozturk, we felt a horrible sense of deja vu. Men in plain clothes taking an activist away? We have seen it before, many times. This is the work of Mr. Trump’s budding. siloviki – operating without a warrant, in defiance of due process and under political orders.”
***** “The very first essential for success is a perpetually consistent and regular employment of violence.”
[ Adolf Hitler }
7] “Dictators are relatively powerless without a pliable population creating the illusion of support for the leader. That’s where “byudzhetniki” come in. the word literally means “budget people” and describes the various people whose livelihoods depends on the government. In Russia they could hold almost any position: civil servants, students, workers, teachers, doctors.’
“The authorities are not shy about using this dependency as leverage. those images of cheering crowds at mr. Putin’s Red Square speeches? You might be surprised to find out that a large chunk, if not a majority, have been pushed to attend. by their employers…”Byudzhetniki”. are everywhere in Russia.”……..
“In America, this kind of paid-for partisanship is rare. But there are signs the Trump administration wants its own byudzhetniki.”
8] “What does all this authoritarianism lead to? In Russia, imperialism and war….many in the Kremlin were certain that Russia’s place must be at the center – at least of the former Soviet Union. The. “near abroad”. denoted former Soviet republics, suggesting that they might be independent but just for now.”……
“The term entered the American vocabulary when the U.S. military used it to describe Greenland and Panama in an internal memo. The way the Trump administration has been talking about these countries has us flabbergasted. It repeats, trope by trope, the Kremlin’s propaganda leading up to the war in Ukraine..”….
9] “Good czar, bad boyars”…Dating back to imperial Russia, it describes the belief that the ruler is wise and benevolent but is surrounded by corrupt officials and elites – boyars, in czarist Russia – who sabotage the ruler’s good intentions.
“Kremlin propaganda is suffused with that sentiment…that if Mr. Putin only knew about their suffering, he would help them.” ………
“We can see this playing out pretty clearly in America. The MAGA movement encourages supports to “trust the plan>”. And when things go wrong, as with “Signalgate,” Mr. Trump distances himself from it. He similarly stayed away from the Department of Government Efficiency and ushered mr. Musk out the door when he became too unpopular. The bad boyar had to go.”
***. “Great is the mischief of a legal crime.” [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, XXXX – CORRUPTION II
In our 6/25/25 post on Trump corruption, I – begin now with a brief review:
“President Trump has more than doubled his personal wealth since starting his 2024 election campaign.”
*** “..one certainty..there is no way to access infinite wealth without rigging the system. NO one becomes a billionaire honestly.” [ Sarah Chayes: “On Corruption In America” ]
We resume providing excerpts from the 6/8/25 New York Times editorial, “The American System Is Not Designed To Resist Corruption”:
1] “During Mr. Trump’s first term, he frequently used his powers to reward himself. He held government events at his hotels, and his family business continued to make deals involving foreign governments, in apparent violation of the constitutional prohibition of enrichment from foreign leaders. But those erasures of ethical norms now look like a dress rehearsal for the ultimate production of the second term. Given the stakes, we believe..it is important to step back and document the range of self-dealing since he took office four months ago:
2] “While administration officials engage in complex negotiations in the Middle East, Mr. Trump and his family are making billions of dollars worth of deals with players in the region.
3] “During his first term, those currying favor with Mr. Trump bought drinks and dinner or spent the night at his Washington hotel. Now they can spend half a million dollars to join the private club Donald Trump jr. is opening in Georgetown.”
4]. “As his administration is negotiating with Vietnam to reduce the tariffs he imposed on the country’s goods, the government there is making way for a $1.5 billion golf complex outside Hanoi, as well as a Trump skyscraper in Ho Chi Minh City.”
5]. “Serbian officials cleared the way for a Trump International Hotel in Belgrade by using a forged document to permit the demolition of a cultural site at the location.”
6] “Mr. Trump has held meetings, including one in the Oval Office, to force a merger between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV golf circuit, which frequently holds tournaments on Trump courses.”
7]. “The right-wing activist Elizabeth Fago attended a $1 million-per-person fund-raising dinner for MAGA, Inc., Mr. Trump’s super PAC, in April. Less than three weeks later, The Times reported, he granted a full pardon to Ms. Fago’s son Paul Walczak, who pleaded guilty to tax crimes in 2014. The pardon is one of many issued by Mr. Trump to people who provided him with political or financial support or were associated with others who did.
8] “After personally suing media companies that the government regulates, including CBS/Paramount and ABC/Disney, Mr. Trump has won millions of dollars in settlements…….a baseless lawsuit Mr. Trump filed..”
9] “Amazon has agreed to pay #40 million for the right to a documentary about Melania Trump. That’s tens of millions more than such projects usually cost, Hollywood executives have said….Defense contracts for web services would be reason enough for Amazon to curry favor with Mr. Trump.”
10]. “Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee raised $239 million, mostly from large corporations and business leaders. The committee spent far less than that on the inauguration and faces few legal restrictions on ehat to do with the rest of the money.”
{Note: review items #2-#10 – this is a SMALL SAMPLE of how ‘YOUR’. president has used his public office to enrich himself and the favored few around him. In doing so, Trump has/is shredding 1779-2016 norms of ethical conduct, ignoring laws with impunity – partially because of the CORRUPT Roberts ‘court’ giving him immunity – an immunity that George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Eisenhower didn’t need, didn’t ask for. The effect of Trump’s. NORMALIZING. corruption on American society, government, ethics and morals is not totally visible yet. But one thing is certain – the effect. WILL. NOT. BE. POSITIVE.}
*** “The consequences of turning a blind eye to government corruption go far beyond simply letting some corrupt politicians and bureaucrats walk free.” [ Tom Fitton ]
11]. “If Americans shrug this off as just “Trump being Trump.” his self-dealing will become accepted behavior. It will encourage other politicians to sell their offices. The damage will undermine our government, our society and even our economy. Historically, when corruption becomes the norm in a country, economic growth suffers, and living standards stagnate. Under Mr. Trump, the United States is sliding down that slope.”
*****. “You shall not show partiality, nor take a bribe: for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous.” [ Deuteronomy 16:19 ]
*** “A wicked man takes a bribe secretly to pervert the ways of justice.” [ Proverbs 17:23 ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, XXXX – CORRUPTION, II
*****. “The point is you can’t be too greedy.” [ Donald John Trump ]
This post is excerpts from: “Trump’s Corrosive Culture Of Corruption” [New York Times editorial; 6/8/25] READ the entire article – more evidence ITEMIZED on the NORMALIZATION of corruption by Trump and people around him.”
***** “The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.” [ David Hume ]
1] “..and shortly after the Trump administration took office in January, the Securities and Exchange Commission paused its lawsuit against him on charges of cryptocurrency fraud.”
“The message seemed obvious enough: People who make Mr. Trump richer regularly receive favorable treatment from the government he runs.
“The cryptocurrency is perhaps the starkest example of the culture of corruption in his second term. He and his relatives directly benefit from the sale of their cryptocurrency by receiving a cut of the investment.”
2]. “Only a few years ago, Mr. Trump was deeply skeptical of cryptocurrency, calling it “potentially a disaster waiting to happen” and comparing it to the “drug trade and other illegal activity.” Since he and his family have become major players in the market, however, his concerns have evidently disappeared. He shut down a Justice Department team that investigated illegal uses of cryptocurrency. He pardoned crypto executives who pleaded guilty to crimes, and his administration dropped federal investigations of crypto companies. He nullified an Internal Revenue Service rule that went after crypto users who didn’t pay their taxes
***** “Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law.”
[ Justice Lous Brandeis]
3} “The self-enrichment of the second Trump administrration is different from old-fashioned corruption>>>>>Nonetheless, he is presiding over a culture of corruption. He and his family have created several ways for people to enrich them – and government policy then changes the ways that benefit those who have helped the Trumps profit.. Often Mr. Trump does not even try to hide the situation. As the historian Matthew Dallek recently put it, “Trump is the most brazenly corrupt national politician in modern times, and his openness about it is sui generis.” He is proud of his avarice, wearing it as a sign of success and savvy
***** “The corruption that hides in plain sight is the real threat to our democracy.” [ Zephyr Teachout ]
4]. “This culture is part of Mr. Trump’s larger efforts to weaken American democracy and turn the federal government into an extension of himself. He has pushed the interests of the American people to the side, in favor of his personal interests…By using the power of the people for personal gain, he degrades that power for any other purpose. He stains the reputation of the United States, which has long stood out as a place where confidence in the rule of law fosters confidence in the economy and financial markets. This country was not previously known as an executive kleptocracy.” [Note: for perspective, read Casey Michel’s. “American Kleptocracy” – 2021 – Trump is in it!]
Note: Our next post will provide ITEMIZATION compiled by the New York Times in this 6/8/25 editorial of the scope of Trump’s NORMALIZATION of corruption. Donald J. Trump, the people around him, the POWER BEHIND HIM are a CANCER on America. YOUR democracy is deliberately being destroyed by multiple ways by the Trump administration. Much was written up in “Project 2025,” the far right blueprint to create a plutocratic theocracy. Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” now in congress is 1,000 pages of more far right destruction and immorality – not the least is making Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the rich permanent – which means services for people like YOU MUST be cut to pay for it.
Abraham once said that if America was to be destroyed it would have to come from within. YOU are now witnessing this destruction from within – by “..the most brazenly corrupt national politician in modern times…”
*****!!!!!*****. What are YOU going to do about it????? What are you going to say when your children ask?
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness – XXXIX – CORRUPTION, I
***** “Corruption..is an operating system of sophisticated networks in which government officials, key
private-sector interests, and our-and-out criminals interweave.” {Sarah Chayes: “On Corruption in America”]
Following are excerpts from: “The American System Is Not Designed To Resist Corruption”. [Ben Rhodes; New York Times; 6/8/25]. READ the article!!!!! Read and then THINK on every quote. Make no mistake – Donald J. Trump and cronies, and most importantly – THE POWER BEHIND THEM – ARE. corrupting YOUR government Partly for twisted ideological reasons, but most of all – GREED. Continuing 1981- Republican policies – they are cutting taxes on the already obscenely rich and corporations – and shifting the tax burden onto people like YOU.
1]. “President Trump has more than doubled his personal wealth since starting his 2024 election campaign. Billions of foreign dollars have flowed into his family’s real estate and crypto ventures. A plane that doublers as a “palace in the sky” has been given for Mr. Trump’s use by the government of Qatar.”
2]. “It is easy to dismiss this as just a bigger and more brazen version of the self-dealing we saw during the first Trump term. But it poses a more fundamental danger. Our political system is being transformed into something that no longer serves the people…the United States is seemingly becoming just another country with a corrupt strongman personalizing and profiting from power.” [ Read this again – slowly. think what has just been written here.]
***** “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty – power is ever stealing from the many to the few.” [ Wendell Phillips ]
3] “As with Mr. Trump and ..Recep Tayyyip Erdogan, this includes Mr. Orban’s son-in-law. Family members and associates double as gatekeepers and deal makers operating outside formal government roles, which come with rules and oversight.”……….
“The story he tells echoes America’s. A justice system being captured by the leader’s loyalists. Checks and balances weakened or ignored until they barely exist. Moral and ethical frameworks eroded. Oligarchs becoming richer and more powerful than institutions.” [ Read this again – THIS is what D.J. Trump has/is doing to America.]
4] “Mr. Lederer likened the pressure corruption puts on a system to a river bearing down on a dam. Once the dam breaks, you’re washed downriver by currents you can’t control…opposition parties in Hungary, as in the United State, failed to understand that the system had collapsed…because the rules and expectations it relied on had disintegrated beyond salvaging……The corruption becomes a flood, a new normal, carrying the entire country along with it..”
*****”To usurp supreme and absolute authority..in a freee state and subject it to tyranny, the people must have already
become corrupt by gradual steps from generation to generation.” [ Machiavelli ]
5]”Americans are further downriver than we seem to understand..over the past several months, Mr. Trump has made moves that far exceed anything Mr. Orban has done. What separates Mr. Trump from an Orban or even a Putin is the awesome economic, technological and military power of..the United States of America.
“No country has more leverage over the global economy. Through tariffs announced on every country on earth, Mr. Trump has personalized that power.
6]. “On “Liberation Day,” Mr. Trump announced a 46 percent tariff on imports from Vietnam. He then paused it and created a 90-day period to negotiate..the Vietnamese government hastily approved a $1.5 billion deal involving a Trump golf complex before a ceremony attended by Eric Trump…….
“It’s impossible to know if this was a quid pro quo for tariff relief. But the ambiguity is the point. Governments like Vietnam’s are left to wonder what they can do to appease the U.S. president.”
*****. “There is nothing so characteristic of narrowness of littleness of soul as the love of riches.” [ Cicero ]
7]. “The American people will be losers in this process. Mr. Trump has ideological and personal reasons to perpetuate tariff uncertainty to maintain his power. Even if he succeeds in extracting some trade concessions, America’s businesses, investors and consumers have to expect continued volatility, higher prices and only temporary resolutions to trade tensions..”
8] “In the second Trump term, A.I. is going to be increasingly deployed globally. In the absence of careful planning, U.S. workers could face mass job displacement. In the absence of regulation, A.I. poses security threats: from cybercrime, disinformation and surveillance to the production of new weapons to the unforeseen dangers of superhuman intelligence. Yet instead of empowering experts or negotiating norms, Mr. Trump has slashed government agencies and personalized decisions. The “big, beautiful bill” that passed the House would even bar states from regulating artificial intelligence for 10 years. Power and the potential to profit off it, rests with Mr. Trump and whomever he favors.” {!!!!! – Read this VERY carefully again – there is so much here that imperils YOU, your family, America it is mind boggling!!! Trump has literally “sold YOU down the river” – for GREED.]
***** “the point is you can’t be too greedy.” [ Donald J. Trump ]
9] “If deregulated crypto markets generate a worrisome bubble, will Mr. Trump prioritize his family’s investments or the health of the global financial system? If justice is selective and pardons can be purchased, will white-collar crime proliferate? If the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act continues to go unenforced, Will bribery be normalized as the cost of doing business?
10]. “Corruption is a powerful tool, but it is not popular. To build a movement powerful enough to push back on Mr. Trump’s self-dealing, Democrats must show people how it will affect their lives.”……
“Already Mr. Trump has cut government programs that people depend on but that do not bolster his power or offer opportunities for profit…the “big, beautiful bill” ..would be a boon to his family and the wealthiest supporters while slashing Medicaid and nutrition assistance. It would add over $2 trillion to the national debt wile exploding inequality and making life worse for many Americans. That too is a story of corruption..”
***** “You have despised the poor. Is it not the rich man who oppresses you, and drag you before the judgment seats?” [ James 2: 6 ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, XXXVIII – FEAR
*****. “It is not necessary in a totalitarian dictatorship to be loved by the people. It is enough to be
feared, as Stalin was in Soviet Russia.” [William Shirer: “The Nightmare Years 1930-1940”]
1]. “GOP’s Murkowski: ‘We are all afraid’ of Trump moves.” [Theodoric Meyer, Patrick Svitek: Washington Post Weekly; 4/20/25]: “Sen. Lisa Murkowski [R-Alaska]…said she is worried about speaking out because of the threat of political revenge by President Donald Trump…”We are all afraid.”….”I am oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice because retaliation is real..”
***. “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” [Theodore Roosevelt]
2]. “This is how authoritarianism functions in the 21st century. It doesn’t need a dictator in a military uniform when it has billionaires in boardrooms, access to surveillance technology, and cronies embedded deep within the machinery of government. It replaces accountability with loyalty. It replaces oversight with secrecy. And it replaces democracy with intimidation and control, just like in Hungary and Russia.”
“Even if Musk and DOGE never use the data they’ve extracted, the damage is already done. The fear is out there. As labor expert Kate Bronfenbrenner put it, “Just saying that they have access to the data is intimidating.” And that’s the point.”
“This isn’t just about controlling government agencies and the courts; it’s about creating a culture of fear so pervasive that no one dares challenge power. Workers won’t organize. Regulators won’t enforce. Whistleblowers won’t come forward. Democracy withers not with a bang, but with a whimper of silence and complicity.” [Thom Hartmann: ‘
“The Department of Government Efficiency Is A Lie – And It Might Destroy Us All”; The progressive Populist; 5/15/25}
***** READ THIS AGAIN – think on it, read it again – YOUR democracy is threatened as never before*****
*** “..the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts..” [ President Franklin D. Roosevelt; 3/4/1933]
3]. “More than six weeks into the second Trump administration, there is a chill spreading over political debate in Washington and beyond. People on both sides of the aisle..say they are intimidated by the prospect of online attacks from Mr. Trump and Elon Musk, concerned about harm to their companies and frightened for the safety of their families. Politicians fear banishment by a party remade in Mr. Trump’s image and the prospect of primary opponents financed by Mr. Musk.”
“When you see important societal actors – be it university presidents, media outlets, C.E.O.’s, mayors, governors – changing their behavior to avoid the wrath of the government, that’s a sign that we’ve crossed the line into some form of authoritarianism,” said Steven Levitsky, professor of government at Harvard and the co-author of the influential 2018 book “How Democracies Die.” [Elisabeth Bumiller: “Fearing Payback, Critics of Trump Mute Themselves”; New York Times; 3/9/25]
***”Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” [ Harry S. Truman, 33rd President ]
4]. “The American Oligarchy is Petrified by Trump’s Economic Chaos But Careful Not to Criticize Him Directly” [Robert Reich; The Progressive Populist; 5/15/25]: “None dare come right out and say it: Trump is out of his mind and crashing the entire world economy. “It’s not smart to criticize the President,” said Robert K. Steel, a veteran Wall Street executive and top Treasury Department official under President George W. Bush. Not smart because Trump has too many ways to punish them.”
***. “Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters.”
[ Justice Robert Jackson ]
5]. “Real power is – I don’t even want to use the word – fear.” Donald Trump made that remark to the journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in March 2016. Fear is, of course, a favorite tool of the president-elect. He has used it for decades to intimidate opponents, critics and allies to give up, give in or give way. He built his real estate empire through law suits and threats against rivals and partners.
“He cowed and demolished political opponents through humiliation and invective, He consolidated control of the Republican Party and silenced G.O.P. detractors with pressure tactics and threats to end careers. And as president, he used thre power of his office and the power of social media to make life miserable for anyone he chose.”
“His goal in these efforts has been to push people to check themselves rather than check his power….Mr. Trump is using fear not only with Congress but also with other essential independent institutions such as courts, business, higher education and the news media. The goal is broadly the same: to deter elected officials, judges, executives and others from exercising their duties in ways that challenge him or hold him accountable. He wants to make dissent so painful as to be intolerable.” [ “Saying No To Fear”; New York Times Editorial; 1/19/25 ]
***. “No passion so effectively robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.” [ Edmund Burke ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, XXXVII – Redefining Crime
*****. “There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men.”
[ Ludwig von Mises ]
This post will BEGIN the long list of “redefinitions” of the Trump DICTATORSHIP, which have begun to CORRUPT American government, American values, American society, American decency.
1] “Trump Pardons Redefine Crime” [ Glenn Thrush; New York Times; 6/1/25 ] – several excerpts follow:
A] “President Donald Trump is employing the vast power of his office to redefine criminality to suit his needs – using pardons to inoculate criminals he happens to like, downplaying corruption and fraud as crimes, and seeking to stigmatize political opponents by labeling them criminals.” [read & THINK on this again]
B]. “Trump has used his pardon power, like nearly every other executive tool in his kit, to assert personal dominance over processes generally, if not always, governed by established ethical and institutional guardrails. He professes to abide by the rue of law but has often shown a willingness to do so only when he defines the rules and laws.”
C]. “”Granting pardons or commuting sentences of public officials or other white-collar criminals convicted of fraud, tax evasion and other breaches of trust is likely to have the effect of normalizing nonviolent crimes,” said Barbara McQuade…”Of course, stealing by fraud is still stealing. It’s just that this is the way rich people do it.”
D] “Another Trump objective: Rewriting the history of the Capitol riot to minimize the actions of his supporters and emphasize the hardship they endured by being prosecuted. He has gone so far as to call some of those who were imprisoned “hostages.”
“Hours after declaring at his inauguration that “the scales of justice will be rebalanced,” Trump granted blanket clemency to around 1,600 rioters, some of them violent, who ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. It instantly obliterated the biggest and most logistically complex investigation in the history of the Justice Department and was followed, in short order, by a purge of career prosecutors who obtained convictions.”
E]. “At the time, Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney in Washington who oversaw many of the trials, said the move undermined the rule of law and set a dangerous precedent by removing the main deterrence against future acts of insurrection and violence by would-be rioters.” [read this again & THINK on it. ‘UNDERMINED THE RUE OF LAW.” and future implications. For perspective see how DICTATOR Trump is acting on protests against HIM. ]
F]. “If the Jan. 6 clemency edict was broad, Trump’s recent actions disproportionally favor the powerful, famous, well-connected and wealthy.” [Note: the Constitution says. “..promote the general Welfare..” – just how does pardoning people who killed police officers “..establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility..” ?????]
G]. “These actions follow a systematic effort inside the Justice Department to dismantle units that investigate public corruption, fraud and foreign interference in U.S. businesses and elections.”
*****. “What do I care about the law. Hain’t I got the power?” [ Cornelius Vanderbilt ]
2]. “How a Troubling Trump Pardon Hurt a Major Criminal Inquiry” [ Mischael Schmidt, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, Alan Feuer; New York Times; 11/26/23]: “..one commutation stood out…The commutation dealt a substantial blow to an ambitious criminal investigation..” of a person with a history of hurting small business and others.
3] “Trump Says He’ll Stop Health Care Fraudsters. Last Time, He Let Them Walk” [Brett Kelman; The Progressive Populist; 5/1/25]: Trump pardoned a man whose company “defrauded taxpayers out of tens of millions of dollars.” Trump commuted a sentence for a health care executive convicted of a “$1.3 billion Medicare and Medicaid fraud scheme”; also commuted a doctor serving a 17-year sentence “for defrauding Medicare of $42 million.”
4] “Trump Pardoned Them; Now They’re Helping Him” [ Beth Reinhard, Manuel Roig-Franzia, Clarence Morse; Washington post; 12/3/23 ]: “Never before had a president used his constitutional clemency powers to free or forgive so many people who could be useful to his future political efforts..dozens of recipients..”
5]. “Trump pardons GOP donor convicted of bilking investors” [ Jack Ewing; New York Times; 3/29/25 ]: ‘..Shareholders lost tens of millions of dollars.”
6]. “Judge: Pardons don’t ‘change the truth'” [ News Services; 1/23/25 ]: after Trump’s mass pardons for Jan. 6, 2021 offenders, a federal judge said evidence of Jan 6th is preserved through the “neutral lens” of riot videos, trial transcripts, jury verdicts and judicial opinions.
*****. “Crime is contagious. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” [ Justice Louis Brandeis ]
[NOTE: Trump hasn’t just redefined crime, he’s also redefined downward standards for government honesty, transparency, corruption, cruelty, stupidity, craziness. If America was a “3rd world” country – we’d be laughing at him and his country. Trump has NOT, will NOT, “Make America Great Again.” He has, statistically, made us weaker. He has degraded America in the eyes of the world. Virtually his every move sincve January 20, 2025 has resulted in discrediting America. Many of hispolicies are making new enemies – often among former friends and allies.
His 2017 tax cut for the obscenely rich blew up the national debt. His effort to make thse tax cuts permanent will add TRILLIONS more on that debt. The interest on that – his – national debt is $1 trillion EVERY YEAR. Economists [REAL ones] say his policies don’t add up. Farmers and business people say his tariffs and economic policies are DIVORCED FROM REALITY.
Trump’s attacks on the “rule of law”. will damage America for years, maybe generations. His attacks on universities will “kill the goose that lays the golden egg.” In his NEED FOR ENEMIES, he has deliberately exacerbated ill will, suspicion, hatreds, and further divided Americans. All this damage is all the more shameful because of the motives behind it: GREED and political advantage. ]
*****. “Power is okay, and stupidity is usually harmless. Power and stupidity together are dangerous.”
[ Patrick Rothfuss ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, XXXVI – Principles of Stupidity
***** “Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.” [ Margaret Atwood ]
This post presents for YOUR consideration David Brooks’ “The Six Principles Of Stupidity” [ New York Times; 2/2/25 ]
1] “Last week the Chinese made incredible gains in artificial intelligence and the Americans made incredible gains in human stupidity. I’m sorry, but I look at the Trump administration’s behavior over the last week and the only word that accurately describes it is: stupid.
2] “I define stupidity as behaving in a way that ignores this question: What would happen next? If somebody comes up to you and says, “I think I’m going to take a hike in a lightning storm with a copper antenna on my head,” stupidity replies, “That sounds like a really great idea!” Stupidity is the tendency to take actions that hurt you and the people around you. The administration produced volleys of stupidity last week.”
3] “..this is my big prediction for this administration: It will churn out a steady stream of stupid policies, and when the consequences of those policies begin tohit Trump’s approval rating, he will flip-flop, diminish or abandon those policies. He loves popularity more than any idea
“But it is still true that we’re going to have to learn a lot about stupidity over the next four years. I’ve distilled what I’ve learned so far into six main principles: “
***** “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
[ Mark Twain ]
4]. “Principle 1: Ideology produces disagreement, but stupidity produces befuddlement…When stupidity is in control, the literature professor Patrick Moreau argues, words become unscrewed “from their relation to reality.””
5]. “Principle 2: Stupidity often inheres in organizations, not individuals. When you create an organization in which one man has all the power and everybody else has to flatter his preconceptions, then stupidity will surely result.”
6] “Principle 3: People who behave stupidly are more dangerous than people who behave maliciously. Evil people at least have some accurate sense of their own self-interest, which might restrain them. Stupidity dares greatly! Stupidity already has all the answers!”
***** “Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal.” [ Samuel Johnson ]
7] “Principle 4: People who behave stupidly are unaware of the stupidity of their actions…the Dunning-Kruger effect..is that incompetent people don’t have the skills to recognize their own incompetence…the Hegseth-Gabbert corollary: the Trump administration is attempting to remove civil servants who may or may not be progressive but who have tremendous knowledge in their field of expertise and hire MAGA loyalists who often lack domain knowledge or expertise.”
8]. “Principle 5: Stupidity is nearly impossible to oppose…Because stupid actions do not make sense, they invariably come as a surprise. Reasonable arguments fall on deaf ears. Counter-evidence is brushed aside. Facts are deemed irrelevant.”
9] “Principle 6: The opposite of stupidity is not intelligence, it’s rationality. The psychologist Keith Stanovich defines rationality as the capacity to make decisions that help people achieve their objectives. People in the grip of the populist mind-set tend to be contemptuous of experience, prudence and expertise, helpful components of rationality. It turns out that this can make some populists willing to believe anything – conspiracy theories, folk tales and internet legends; ghat vaccines are harmful to children. they don’t live within a structured body of thought but within a rave party chaos of prejudices.”
***** “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.” [ Friedrich Nietzsche ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, XXXV – The Human Toll of Trump’s Aid Cuts
***** “A man of Cruelty is God’s enemy.” [ thomas Fuller ]
Please consider the following excerpts from Nicholas Kristof”s “The Human Toll of Trump’s Aid Cuts” [New York times; 6/1/25]:
1] “I see secretary of state Marco Rubio as a good man doing bad things, but perhaps he thinks even worse of me: He recently suggested I was a liar. While testifying before Congress, Rubio claimed..the Trump administration’s dismantling of the United states Agency for International Development had not cost any lives. “No children are dying on my watch,”…broadened his statement to include adults..”
2] “This is ludicrous: the only debate is whether to measure the dead in the thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. So Representative Brad Sherman..challenged Rubio, citing reporting overseas by me and by Reuters of individuals who died as a result of the shutdown of American humanitarian aid….”That’s a lie,” Rubio said. “False.”
3]. “So let me help Rubio with the truth. Meet Evan Anzoo, a 5-year-old boy who was born with H.I.V. in south Sudan…for five years America kept him alive with antiretroviral medicines costing less than 12 cents a day…a program started by President George W. Bush that has saved more than 26 million lives..turned the tide of AIDS around the world and built enormous good wil toward the United States.”
4]. “Then along came President Trump and his freeze on most humanitarian aid…Evan weakened and soon died of an opportunistic infection.”
***** “The righteous considers the cause of the poor, but the wicked closes his eyes to them.” { Proverbs 28:27 ]
5] “If Rubio needs further reminder of the human toll, I also met a little girl named Achol Deng, 8, who likewise died when she lost access to antiretrovirals because of the U.S.A.I.D. freeze….It was Elon Musk who first insisted that “no one has died.” Now Rubio has doubled down.”
6] “..American aid overall still saved about one life every 10 seconds, based on estimates by the Center for Global Development.”
7] “An ‘impact counter” developed by an economist estimates about 300,000 people have died so far from the reductions in American assistance, two-thirds of them children. The death toll is said to be rising at a rate of 103 per hour.
8] “I’m not sure it’s actually that high, partly because I’ve seen some laid-off health workers continue to work without pay…And it takes time for children to weaken and die…nobody knows the true number…the flat denial of any deaths at all is preposterous.”
*****. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you.” [ John 13:34 ]
9] Rubio chooses not to make the argument that I believe is Trump’s true position: We want tax cuts {disproportionally benefitting the rich}, so we need to cut funds in the budget from people who are so marginalized that they can’t even complain. So Evan and Achol died.
*****. “The point is you can’t be too greedy.” [ Donald John Trump ]
10] “To deny the reality of dying children not only insults the memory of children starving to death in Sudan and Yemen and Afghanistan; It also insults the intelligence of Americans.”
*****. “Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation.” [ Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ]
[Note: so there you have the essence of one Donald J. Trump: deliberate CRUELTY so billionaires don’t have to pay proportionate taxes on their immense, obscene, wealth. And, it is KNOWN. people are dying because of this. How does this “Make America Great Again” ?????]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, XXXIV – Reverse Robin Hood
*****. “An unjust law is ni law at all.” [ St. Augustine ]
!!!!!!!!! K.I.S.S. !!!!!!!!!! – Just look at one part of Trump’s “Beautiful Big Bill” – to see the CRUELTY and CORRUPTION of Trump’s agenda
1] “..here’s what this bill does in the real world: It cuts taxes mostly for rich people. It cuts Medicaid and food stamps. Republicans are also allowing some Obamacare subsidies to expire. And so the estimate is that between all this, 13 million people will lose health insurance.
***** “The love of money is the root of all evil.” [ I Timothy 6:10 ]
2] “It’s also grimly exact. The bill has $1.1 trillion in tax cuts for people who make more than $500,000 a year. And it has $1.1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and food stamps. It is a straight transfer from people who cannot afford food and medical care to people who can afford to fly first class.”
***** “Woe to them that make unjust laws.” [ Isaiah. 10:1 ]
3] “I’ve been a policy journalist for more than 20 years… I cannot remember a more cruel or irresponsible piece of domestic legislation that has been seriously proposed.” { Items 1, 2, 3 al from: Ezra Klein: “Trump’s Big Budget Bomb”; New York times; 5/25/25 }
[NOTE: Read items 1, 2, 3 above. AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN. This is the ENTIRE Trump agenda, or perhaps the “Project 2025” agenda, or perhaps the billionaire’s agenda – probably all three. GREED, CRUELTY, CORRUPTION. In stark terms: the top 1-3% wins and the lower 97% loses – that’s YOU, your children, your neighbors, your friends, America’s future.]
*****. “..essentially all..economic gains of the last 20 years have gone to a tiny sliver of the wealthiest Americans, and that’s not by accident…It’s by design. the wealthy have paid for the ability to stand at the drawing board and plan out big parts of the economy so..the whole thing works out particularly well for them.” [ Morris Pearl, Erica Payne & The Patriotic Millionaires: “Tax The Rich! NOTE: read this book for FACTS on why & how the GREEDY super rich are screwing the lower 95-97% legally ]
In addition to raising the national debt [which will be used as an excuse to screw the bottom 95-97%], gutting government [which protects YOU from the rich], making enemies all over the world, seriously weakening America – there’s this: Trump’s absolute CONTEMPT for YOU, the average American citizen.
No American president who believed in “democracy,” and enacting policies that ‘..promote the general Welfare.. [Constitution’s Preamble]. would demand Congress pass such a bill, and then have the arrogance to call such a travesty “A Big Beautiful Bill.”
[NOTE: do your own factual research: compare 1947-73 America to l98l-2025 America. Research tax laws, wealth, income, attitudes, policies, intent of policies. America has never been perfect – but in 1947-73, by INTENT, we did approach it. the – the rich struck back, greed took over. America is a much harsher, crueler, hateful, mistrusting country. BECAUSE – we used to think “we all do better when we all do better.” Donald Trump , the people around him, the POWER BEHIND HIM – are a cancer on America. things will NOT get better un†il “Trumpism” is ended. ]
With Justice For All 
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